Dominica declares State of Emergency as Tropical Storm Issac approaches

ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – A State of Emergency has been declared in Dominica as the island braces for the effects of Tropical Storm Issac today.

Yesterday, National Security Minister Rayburn Blackmoore announced that the state of emergency would run from midnight on Wednesday to noon on Friday.

This is in addition to an islandwide curfew.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Blackmoore said the Dominica Police Force advised President Charles Savarin that the state of emergency should be declared and this was necessary to “save life and property and protect people from themselves.”

Superintendent Richmond Valentine added that police officers will be deployed islandwide with a number of checkpoints at various locations.

“Stay at your home with your family, in my mind, there is no safer place for you to be,” he said.

“From midnight tonight, we should have no one on the streets walking or driving unless you have a valid curfew pass.”

He added that curfew passes will enable holders to leave their homes to attend work and back.

Valentine also asked the public to continue to work with the police just as they did for Tropical Storm Beryl.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit urged citizens to be “fully prepared” and to take warnings seriously.

In the latest update on Thursday, the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said that Tropical Storm Issac Isaac is moving toward the west near 17 miles per hour and that this general motion is forecast to continue for the next several days.

On the forecast track, Isaac is expected to move across the central Lesser Antilles and into the eastern Caribbean Sea on Thursday afternoon and then move across the eastern and central Caribbean Sea through the weekend.